Niamh Barry, a Trinity student best known for her work in documentary filmmaking, released her first book of film photographs this month. The book, entitled Boston Surrounding, documents the time she spent studying in the US earlier this year.
Though her time there was cut short due to the coronavirus pandemic, Barry’s observations of Boston and its neighbouring cities provided more than enough content to fill a 32-page picture book – and the first print run sold out in 10 minutes.
Speaking to The University Times, Barry explains how her experience in documentary filmmaking resurfaces in her film photography. “I learnt so much even in the first year of college about society, and I started making documentaries. So I’ve made two, and my first one was about male mental health, so that kind of put me out there.” Boys Actually Do Cry, Barry’s documentary about male mental health, was followed by The Same, But Different, a documentary about people with disabilities in Trinity.
Although Boston Surrounding takes the form of a picture book, it follows the same non-fiction, documentary style as Barry’s films. “The style that runs through it is street photography, documentary, non-fiction type. It’s moments that go unseen or unnoticed, that people just often don’t even look at, or don’t bring a huge amount of attention to. It’s just things like small gestures, small things that someone’s doing that’s really natural.”
It’s moments that go unseen or unnoticed, that people just often don’t even look at, or don’t bring a huge amount of attention to
This non-fiction, natural style is achieved through constant observation. Barry, it seems, is always paying attention to detail. “I think I asked one person in the photobook if I could take their photo. I think 95 per cent of them are people who were just on the street and I just saw them do this small thing and I had to take it. That’s one of my favourite things to do: just walk around the city and take photos of small moments.”
This manifests, in the picture book, as a series of photos that star unsuspecting protagonists in everyday, all-American locations. “I went to a diner – really old fashioned diner – because I really wanted to go to one, not only to eat there but also to take some photos and experience it. I saw this man and he looked like he was from the 70s or 80s, and he’s just eating with his colleague, or his girlfriend or his sister, I don’t know who she was, and they’re just eating. I just took it so quickly, and he didn’t even know I took it, like that man will never know and that woman will never know that I took that photo, but it’s one of my favourites.”
The book is composed of tiny moments like this, all united by the visual backdrop of North America.
Barry says she hoped to capture the “nostalgic, and suburban, picturesque” visuals that she associates with the US. One roll of film was used, she says, to capture Coney Island. The Brooklyn theme park was closed when Barry shot it, so the photographs are deeply unusual – it’s not every day you see a deserted theme park. “It felt like a playground, there’s so many photos from Coney Island in the book.” Originally, the photographer intended to go back to the theme park and photograph it in summer, when the rides would be open, but because her time in America was cut short, this wasn’t possible.
It is, however, eerily fitting. “COVID ended my exchange, so that was completely heartbreaking. I wanted to make a book on that entire kind of experience.” The photos of an empty Coney Island, then, make perfect sense – they exist without the busy theme park photos that should have appeared alongside them, and the bizarre visual of empty roller coasters seems to accurately reflect the summer of 2020.
Though Boston Surrounding has sold out, Barry is currently in the process of organising a second print run. A date has not been set for the re-release of the photobook because, of course, uncertainty is everywhere. However, the book will become available again in the next month, and will be for sale through Barry’s Instagram account. Barry doesn’t intend to make a profit, charging €15 per book in order to break even.
